Surface Detail

The avatar swung his legs off the seat between them, turning and pointing at the main screen, which flashed into life showing a slowly retreating star field. “Now there’s a strange thing,” Demeisen said, almost as though not talking to her at all. He glanced at her, nodded at the screen. “See that?”

Lededje looked, peered, squinted. “See what?”

“Hmm,” Demeisen said, and the image on the screen zoomed in, altered in colour and what appeared to be texture. In theory it was a holo display, but everything being shown was so far away there was no real sense of depth. Side-screens filled with coloured graphs, numerals, bar and pie charts described the image manipulation taking place. “That,” he said, nodding and sitting back.

There was a strange, granular quality to the centre of the screen, where the darkness seemed to flicker slightly, oscillating between two very similar and very dark shades of grey.

“What is that?” Lededje asked.

Demeisen was silent for a couple of beats. Then, with a small laugh, he said, “I do believe we’re being followed.”

“Followed? Not by a missile or something?”

“Not by a missile,” the avatar said, staring at the screen. Then he looked away and turned back to her, smiling. “Don’t know why I’m making this thing stare at the fucking module screen,” he said as the screen went blank again. “Yes, followed, by another ship.” Demeisen put his feet up on the seat in between them again, cradling his head in his fingers against the seat’s headrest.

“I thought you were supposed to be-”

“Fast. I know. And I am. But I’ve been slowing down for the last day or so, reconfiguring my fields. Sort of… just in case this happened,” he said, nodding at the blank screen.

“Why?”

“Why look like what you are when you can fool people by looking like what you’re not?” The avatar’s smile was dazzling.

She thought about this for a moment. “I’m glad I’ve been able to teach you something.”

Demeisen grinned. “That thing,” he said as the screen flashed on again, still showing the curious grey pixilation at its centre before it clicked off once more, almost before she could register what she’d seen, “doesn’t know what it’s following.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, I’m positive.” The avatar sounded smug.

“So what does it think it’s following?”

“A lowly Torturer-class Rapid Offensive Unit from the days of fucking yore,” Demeisen said with what sounded like relish. “That’s what it thinks it’s following, assuming it’s done its home work properly. Encasement, sensory, traction; every field I’m currently deploying right now looks convincingly like a very slightly and extremely plausibly tweaked version of the classic Torturer-class signature profile. So it thinks I am a mere dainty pebble amongst modern spacecraft. But I’m not; I’m a fucking rock-slide.” The avatar sighed happily. “It also thinks there isn’t the slightest chance that I can see it, because a Torturer couldn’t.”

“So what does it look like? The thing that’s following us.”

The avatar made a clicking noise with its mouth. “No idea. It looks like what you saw on the screen; I’m not seeing much more than you. I’m only just able to see it’s there at all. Which at that range means it’s probably level tech; an L8 civ or a high-end seven.”

“Not an Enablement ship then?”

“Nope. At a guess; could be Flekke, NR, Jhlupian… maybe GFCF if they’ve been paying especially diligent attention to The Proceedings of the Institute of Wizzo Space Ship Designers Newsletter recently.”

“Why would any of them be following you?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Demeisen said. “I presume to see what I get up to.” He grinned at her. “And to see what I might be carrying. The question they’ll be asking themselves and might want me to answer is: what am I doing here?”

Lededje hoisted one eyebrow. “Thought up anything plausible?”

“Oh, I had concentric layers of cover stories prepared,” the avatar told her, “though in the end I’m a borderline eccentric and very slightly psychotic Abominator-class picket ship and I don’t really have to answer to any fucker. However, most of my alibis are for a humble tramping Torturer class, and one involved being vaguely interested in the Tsungarial Disk, or having some connection with somebody or something in the Culture mission attached to it. An unnecessary ruse in a sense as it turns out, because the mission is actively calling for a bit of help following a smatter outbreak; any Culture ship pulling up here now has a perfect excuse.”

Lededje shook her head. “I have no idea what a smatter outbreak is.”

“Runaway nanotech. Swarmata. Remains of an MHE: a Monopathic Hegemonising Event. Sometimes known as a hegswarm. Your eyes have gone glazed. Anyway, some of that stuff got into the Disk… you do know what the Disk is?”

“Lots of abandoned alien ships no one’s allowed to use, isn’t it?”